Waiter who stood up for boy is called hero

By Minh Dam :
February 8, 2013
: Updated: February 8, 2013 9:39pm

Waiter, Michael Garcia has a crown placed on his head by his new friend, 5-year-old Milo Castillo, after students and teachers from The Rise School of Houston honored Garcia for standing up for their classmate Milo Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013, in Houston. Michael Garcia, a waiter at Laurenzo's, refused to serve a couple who make a rude remark about Milo being a special needs child.

Photo By Johnny Hanson / Houston Chronicle

Michael Garcia has a crown placed on his head by his new friend, 5-year-old Milo Castillo, after students and teachers from the Rise School of Houston honored the waiter.

Photo By Johnny Hanson/Staff

Menomanee Smith, a teacher at The Rise School of Houston, joins in the cheers as Michael Garcia is honored for standing up for 5-year-old Milo Castillo.

Photo By Johnny Hanson/Staff

Michael Garcia got down to receive hugs from Milo Castillo's classmates. Garcia, a waiter at Laurenzo's, refused to serve a family who make a rude remark about Milo being a special-needs child.

Near a classroom window, 5-year-old Milo Castillo fumbled with a golden, bejeweled crown. Michael Garcia, kneeling in front of him, patiently waited with his head bowed.

The crown shifted from between the boy's fingers, but he quickly grasped both sides and gently placed it on top of Garcia's head.

They both grinned.

The jewels adorning the crown actually are plastic and have been glued onto yellow foam. Nevertheless, the crown symbolizes something precious to Milo, a child with Down syndrome.

Garcia is a waiter at Laurenzo's Prime Rib in Houston who refused last month to serve a family who asked to be seated away from Milo and his parents, saying “special needs children need to be special somewhere else.”

Garcia, 45, instantly became a hero for standing up for Milo, receiving praise — and donations — from all over the country after the story spread.

Garcia, who frequently has served Milo and his family, has no regrets about not serving the rude customers, who abruptly left.

“If I had gotten fired, oh well, I would have got another job,” Garcia said. “But what's right is right.”

Before presenting the check Thursday, Garcia joined the children sitting on blue mats for a thank-you party in his honor at the Rise School.

He craned his neck to look over TV cameras as the preschoolers performed a song in sign language, and he hugged each child who walked up to him afterward.

Representatives from each class took turns handing Garcia special gifts that the children had made. Some climbed onto his lap as he read the cards. A box of tissues stayed close by.

“When you have something like this with someone who had no reason to be kind — he doesn't have relatives with special needs, he's not a teacher — but he did it out of a sense of what was right and from his heart, it gives us this hope,” said Ashley Kress, development director for the school and a mother of a child with Down syndrome.

“If Michael can do that, then maybe other people in the world can do that, too,” she added.

Kim Castillo, Milo's mother, said she knows few people would have done what Garcia did.

“What he's doing is not only inspirational, but it's going to hopefully push people to make donations to this amazing, amazing school,” she said.

The Rise School is Houston's first and only school dedicated to the early education of infants, toddlers and preschool children born with Down syndrome and other developmental disabilities in an integrated environment. Thirty-five percent of the students are traditional learners.

Garcia's visit generated a lot of buzz at the school.

Kress said one student told her mom Wednesday that she learned about “somebody new” in class.

“Well, he's kind of like God, but he's not God,” the little girl explained, according to Kress. “And he's kind of like Martin Luther King, but he's not Martin Luther King.”

Thinking of historically significant people, the mom asked: “Well do you know his name?”